Cosmosis Festival - Manchester 12/03/16

It had us worried for a minute, but Cosmosis made its step up in size look easy by the time it got going. Manchester has a new premiere live music event.

You can pinpoint the exact moment that Manchester's Cosmosis Festival really hits its mesmeric stride. Deafheaven's unhinged powerhouse of a frontman, George Clarke, proclaims his band to be "the weirdos on the bill" before launching into the shuddering 'Come Back', the crowd at this point at his absolute mercy. A circle pit the size of a small country opens before him as his band viciously churn out their menacing brand of black-metal-come-shoegaze to a mostly unsuspecting but utterly immersed Earth Stage crowd. Kevin Starrs of Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats had previously stated that his band (who sound like Miles Kane with a fuzz pedal, by the way) intended to "ruin the night". It's a strange clash of stylistic psychedelic snobbery and genuinely hypnotic live music, but thankfully isn't true of the festival as it struts into the evening.

Despite sound bleed issues and a pretty uninspiring inaugural few hours, with local improv weirdos Desmadrados Soldados De Ventura the only really standout prior to Deafheaven's incredible Air stage set, Cosmosis quite quickly proves itself to be the cosmic meltdown of fuzzy guitars, psychedelic light shows and all out oddball indulgence that it promised .Packed full of off-kilter art installations as well as omnipresent leftfield music, it makes for an otherworldly event.

The Ravonettes storm through a hypnotic set to give the Air Stage its first real standout performance, their fusion of distortion and pop more substantial than a mere precursor to the two mammoth names that tower over them on the bill. The first of whom, the infamous Brian Jonestown Massacre, are lead through a career-spanning set by frontman Anton Newcombe, who Alan McGee quite rightly christened "the anti pop star." Having not had time to soundcheck, The BJM too were hindered with technical issues, but managed to transcend their hefty back catalogue as engagingly as ever. Tess Parks joins the band on stage for a stunning version of 'Anemone', and other highlights come in the form of the touching 'Devil May Care' and their finest cut of recent times, Pish. The culture that Cosmosis is birthed of owes so much to The Brian Jonestown Massacre, and it's a worthy performance from a band that seem almost mythical at this stage.

The hour-long break between The BJM and The Jesus and Mary Chain is mostly occupied by the ever-visceral Sleaford Mods, who are in incredible form but suffer most from sound bleeds. The chiming, creepy guitars of slow-burning psych collective Esben & The Witch find themselves a little too close for comfort. Somewhat inevitably, the night belongs to The Jesus and Mary Chain. "We're going to play some songs from our records, we hope you're familiar with them" teases Jim Reid before his band of noisy misfits delve into 'April Skies', the response is almost as deafening as William Reid's cathartic guitar drones, which ring on throughout the set. It's everything a headline set should be: loud, rich with hits, diverse, triumphant. The sing-along's to the like of 'Just Like Honey' are inevitable, but when masses of people are singing along to the likes of 'Reverence', it becomes clear that their recent reprise has solidified their cult favourite status.

It had us worried for a minute, but Cosmosis made its step up in size look easy by the time it got going. Manchester has a new premiere live music event.